With a globe-threatening arsenal, Chaplin warns U.S. forces
to keep away, demonstrating his seriousness by launching a
nuclear missile that explodes, victimless, 200 miles east of
Washington.

As the renegades divide into factions and fend off attacks
from outsiders, “Last Resort,” filmed in Hawaii, shares more
than appearances with “Lost.” Maintaining interest beyond the
central gimmick will be tricky over the long haul.

But the pilot crackles, the central performances are solid,
and the writing shrewdly, if cynically, taps a national mood of
mistrust and Cold War longing.

“666 Park Avenue”

You risk disappointment by imagining Ruth Gordon nosing her
way down the spooky halls of “666 Park Avenue,” ABC’s decent
new thriller haunted by ghosts of its betters.

“Rosemary’s Baby” is only the most obvious chestnut
wafting through the creepy basements and Satanically spacious
living units of an Upper East Side apartment building.

Unemployed architect Jane (Rachael Taylor) moves into an
upscale Gothic beauty as the building’s new resident manager,
along with her city planner husband Henry (Dave Annable).

Her employer is Gavin Doran (Terry O’Quinn, from “Lost”),
the gruff building owner who might be the devil, or at least
knows him well.

The baldheaded boss with watchful eyes certainly has a way
with tenants: He grants elaborate wishes -- musical genius here,
a dead wife resurrected there -- then demands soul-wrenching
payments.

By the end of the first episode, we’re not sure what Doran
and his glamorous wife (Vanessa Williams) want from Jane and
Henry. Perhaps it has to do with Henry’s influence at City Hall,
or Jane’s scholarly interest in the building’s bloody past.

In either case, “666,” created by David Wilcox
(“Fringe”) from Gabriella Pierce’s book series, could be fun,
even without the bold originality and true frights of FX’s
brilliant “American Horror Story.”

“Call the Midwife”

“Call the Midwife,” a warm-hearted British series set in
London’s squalid East End of the 1950s, scored the BBC’s highest
ratings ever for a drama debut last January.

That’s quite the ballyhoo for this modest charmer, and
certainly owes at least a pinch to nostalgia for the great
city’s scrappy postwar gumption.

Americans probably won’t feel the same emotional tug when
“Midwife” has its U.S. debut on PBS Sunday, but the travails
and triumphs of the tale’s heroines make a fine diversion until
“Downton Abbey” returns in January.

Based on the late Jennifer Worth’s popular memoirs,
“Midwife” follows the naive Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) as she
begins her career in what narrator Vanessa Redgrave pronounces
“mid-WIFF-ery.”

Nauseated by human stench, shocked by brutal conditions and
appalled by cruel disregard for the poor and pregnant, Jenny
finds inspiration and sisterhood in the streetwise nuns who
operate the midwives’ nursing order.

“We will see what love can do,” says the ever-patient
Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter), and “Call the Midwife,”
sentimental as it is, shows us just that.

“Call the Midwife” airs on PBS Sunday at 8 p.m. New York
time. Rating: ****